Last March, Vanyaland sat down with Local H frontman Scott Lucas to talk about the band’s concert film, Lifers: A Local H Movie. During the chat, we touched on the exorbitant prices vinyl of the H catalog had hit on the secondary markets, especially the 1996 benchmark breakthrough LP, As Good as Dead, which was going for upwards of $200.
“Yeah, I really hate that,” Lucas said of the cost. “I would just say to people, ‘Hold on.’ Next year is another anniversary for As Good as Dead. I’m sure somebody will do something with it. I think everything’s too much these days, but that is way too much.”
Now, tone doesn’t always come across in the written word, but it was pretty obvious to us that Lucas had something brewing for the Chicago duo’s sophomore effort that spawned the smash “Bound for the Floor,” and hit singles “High Fiving MF” and “Eddie Vedder.” It wasn’t too surprising then when the Long Island label Enjoy the Ride Records advertised a 2LP As Good as Dead set available to order beginning today (February 6).
Except it was a surprise – most notably to Lucas.
“Well, this is news to us,” the official Local H account commented on the Enjoy the Ride Records announcement post on socials. “Especially since we were in the process of acquiring the rights from the label for our own official reissue. But – y’know – who the fuck are we, right?”
It only got messier from there, as the perennially passionate and pissed-off Local H fans quickly took up the mantle for the venerable post-grunge outfit in the comments, accusing Enjoy the Ride of underhanded shenanigans. The label denied doing so, saying they reached out to the group a year ago but never heard back. The account provided screenshots of a message sent via Facebook Messenger last March, disclosing their intentions of doing a reissue of As Good as Dead.
“As usual, everything was done legally with the right holder, and we did our best to get The Band involved, but they don’t read their messages or have any email contact anywhere online,” Enjoy the Ride wrote.
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“We put out close to a hundred different reissues a year over the past handful of years and almost never run into this sort of situation,” Enjoy the Ride Records founder Ross Shotland tells Vanyaland. “Especially when it’s not a Limp Bizkit-type situation where they have millions of followers. If a band does not have contact info anywhere, then they almost always check their DM’s, as how would someone otherwise get in touch with them. It is a courtesy in the first place to attempt, as most labels in this situation do not even try.”
Contrary to that claim, a cursory internet search brings up a contact page on the official Local H website, with everyone from PR to management to the band members themselves represented. Shotland said the information was just added last night, although snapshots from the Wayback Machine confirm it had been there for a number of years.
“Regardless, again, in no way was this attempted to be done behind the band’s back, as we not only messaged them ahead of time but also tagged them in the social media posts yesterday,” Shotland says. “If we were trying to hide it, then we wouldn’t have tagged them. Based on the comment he made in your interview, we were under the impression that they were waiting for someone to do this, as he basically said that, so we expected them to be stoked.”
We also got Lucas’ take.
“I’m not here to beat up on a small label, but it is a little annoying that they’re playing the victim card,” he tells Vanyaland. “Their defense is that they tried to get in touch with us about the reissue last year. How did they try? They sent us a message via Facebook Messenger. But again – is this how people do business? Who the fuck uses Facebook Messenger as a legitimate way to get in touch with someone over business matters? Have they never heard of Google? It takes three seconds.”
Lucas, who will be taking Local H on the road with Filter and Finger Eleven beginning next month on a triple bill that’s coming nowhere near New England, found out about the Enjoy the Ride Records release yesterday.
“I’m on vacation in New Orleans, and I was like, ‘What the fuck is this? This can’t be real.’”
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This morning, Local H revealed their own plans for an As Good as Dead reissue, set for release later this year.
“Our main motivation was to do this thing right,” Lucas says. “The last reissue [in 2016] was basically a pressing of the CD onto vinyl featuring artwork that was scanned from a CD booklet. I’m assuming that’s pretty much what you’re getting with this Enjoy the Ride reissue. And that’s not entirely their fault, because Universal can’t find the original masters – which blows my fucking mind! I’m pretty sure they went up in that warehouse fire, but again – who knows?!? We’re just small fish. Why should they be trusty custodians to this piece of shit record that never even went Gold? But come on!”
“So, what we’ve done with our reissue is go to the original artist and try to faithfully recreate the original artwork, which is not easy. We also went to our favorite mastering engineer Dan Coutant, who delivered a thoughtful and respectful remaster that would sound great on vinyl. And it does sound great. We have no idea what this unauthorized version sounds like. Certainly, it wasn’t approved by us.”
Shotland says if he knew the band had their own edition of As Good as Dead in the works, they wouldn’t have moved forward with the Enjoy the Ride Records pressing.
“We are fans and collectors ourselves, so we always try to treat people the way we would want to be treated. We are a small company and invested close to $30K, multiple rejected test pressings, and a year into this release at the end of the day, so needless to say, it was a labor of love, and if we knew it would be an issue, we would have backed off.”
Sadly, in the world of corporate conglomerates and a history of label mergers that make The Gordian Knot look like a child’s shoelace, it’s easy to see how something like this could happen. As Good as Dead originally came out on Island Records in April 1996. The label was acquired by Universal in 1998, which led many artists to become afterthoughts, including Local H, who saw an immediate and unfortunate lack of promotion for their next album, Pack Up the Cats.
“Luckily, we have someone over there who’s trying to help us,” Lucas says of Universal. “It’s just too big of an operation over there for a band like us. They had us waiting on the process of getting the rights for a reissue, and they’d already given them away last February. Look – I know we’re small fish, and no one over there really cares about some small ‘90s band, but ‘Ouch!’, y’know? And there’s gotta be a better way to do business, no?”
As it stands, the Enjoy the Ride Records version of As Good as Dead, pressed on “Quarter Haze with Splatter” or “Red Black & White Swirl” vinyl, is available now for $35.99.
“But it will be a one-time pressing given the circumstances,” Shotland says.
More details on the official, official Local H edition will be coming soon.
“I mean, people can make their own choice, right?” Lucas says. “An extensive remaster with exclusive liner notes and artwork that we personally supervised? Or a version that has none of that? Sure, you can get the inferior product immediately, but do you want it done now – or do you want it done right?”